Job Scheduler 1.2.6 (Default branch)

The Job Scheduler runs executable files, shell scripts, and database procedures automatically
.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

Generator (FB) vs Sequence(Oracle)

In this comment I will compare a featured called "generator" in Firebird (FB) with "sequence" in Oracl

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

chess game in ajax - done by morfik team

Much had been said about the browser as a platform. It was an idea strongly promoted by, the now gone, Netscape at the start of the Web revolution, but we never got there. Did we? Yes, we did! We just did not notice it!
If you take your browsers to this chess game, you might start to understand what I mean.

< This game has a great interface and is played against you by your own computer. Your moves do not get sent off to a server which comes up with a response and sends a move order back to your browser. The analisys of the play and the decision of the move is entierly done in Javascript, in your own machine, by the browser.

[ED:via Mauricio Longo’s blog , now that is something useful ]

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):..:(ajax):..:(javascript):..:(game):.

MyPostBirdSQL 2.0 RC1 released

Today a RC1 release is announced that many oss developers had been awaiting
MyFireGreSql 2.0 is based on code from mysql 6.0 ,firebird 3.0,postgresql 9.0
We needed a big shake up in open source database world and working on the common code base have it's
advantages:Firebird and Postresql borrowed from mysql's speed , mysql used MVCC for it's transactional engine (is based on firebird) .
SQL2003 is implemented in all three engines now that is published as standard .So why working on a three SQL200X implementations when we could work only on one? , The project's model is linux kernel where vendors are using only one source code for their distributions (patched properly) but there is only one organization for working on the kernel osdl.

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):..:(mysql):..:(postgresql):.

Then they laugh at you

ot only does open source Firebird-Fyracle have a catchy name and almost match Oracle on the 6 well known “gold standard key database evaluation mapping criteria”, but it is “just as idiosyncratic”, AND you can run “Compiere v2.5.3c” ( almost )!

Here is the response from shocked oracle users after they found Firebird/Fyracle (Denial Mode)

Permalink

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):..:(oracle):..:(mssql):.

20GB of video data available, with around 100 hours of firebird related presentations from Firebird Conference

Here is the list of available Films

What is IBExpertLive?

HK-Software has implemented a streaming system based on the Firebird database server, which publishes pictures and audio, as needed to view the presentations from the 2004 and 2005 Firebird Conferences. We will also be adding IBExpert tutorial videos enabling you to learn more about working with Firebird and InterBase with IBExpert.

There is currently about 20GB of video data available, with around 100 hours of firebird-related presentations from last two Firebird Conferences and other events.

To use IBExpertLive, you need a firebird connection via Internet using port 13050 to our server on IP 80.237.154.78. If it does not work, please check your firewall settings. For reporting any other questions/problems regarding IBExpertLive, please use the following contact addresses:

IBELive newsgroup: hk-software.ibexpert.live (English, German and Russian language).

E-mail: ibexpertlive at ibexpert.biz.

There might be some videos that are not working yet, even if they are on the list. Please bear with us; we'll have everything up and running as soon as possible.

The download address is: www.ibexpert.com/ibexpertlive/IBExpertLive_setup.exe

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

google reader firebird

Here is the list of feeds i have in google reader

http://forums.devshed.com/rss61.xml
http://fhasovic.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://www.firebirdsql.org/devjournal/rss.php
http://www.firebirdnews.org/?feed=rss2
http://firebirdnews.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://flamerobin.blogspot.com/atom.xml

I had the firebird-support added but it was too much for
google reader (scrolling between many posts)

.:(firebird):..:(databases):..:(sql):.

The Firebird ADO .NET Data Provider 1.7.1 for .NET 1.1 and Mono 1.1 is available for for download.

Download information can be found here ·

· 1.7.1 ( 2006-03-29 ) ·

(Please read the Changelog for details)

Bug Fixes:

- Fixed bug #1417618

- Minor fix on Guid datatype infer.

Changes:

- Changes to try to avoid problems with IPV6.

- Added new synonym for the user identification ( userid ) in
connection strings.

New features:

- Added initial support for EXECUTE PROCEDURE commands in
FbBatchExecution class.

–
Carlos Guzmán Álvarez
Vigo-Spain

http://carlosga.blogspot.com/

..::firebird::..dotnet::..mono::..asp.net::..csharp::...net::..

fyracle - oracle replacement blog of the day

I won't be suggesting this as a replacement for my Oracle production databases anytime soon, but it might be worth looking at for some applications.

..::firebird::..oracle::..

Google blogsearch drowning in spam

I agree with that
Try to search Firebird on the google search (and sort it by Date)
ps: i tweak-ed the search a little eliminating the auto,body, parts articles
Now even tehnocrati.net is starting to get spammed (Search for firebird+database)
..::firebird::..:(google):..:(spam):..:(tehnorati):..:(blogs):..

Firebird source code reviews

Claudio Valderrama wrote:

"Recently, Coverity presented their first results in their scanning technology that hunts for defects in source code. One of the addressed projects was Firebird. After Roman Rokytskyy reviewed the results, he concluded the failures are in two areas ..."

..::firebird::..

New acronyms FLAPS , FWAP, FWIP

FLAPS is FLAP with ssl (that is s for)

FWAP is an acronym for the combination Microsoft Windows, Apache, Firebird and one or more of Perl, PHP and Python. It is modelled after the more well-known FLAP, referring to the all-open source/free software approach which uses Linux instead of Windows.
FWIP is the WIMP equivalent (alias) with firebird used instead of mysql
..::firebird::..::windows::..::lamp::..::apache::..::php::..

FlameRobin whitepaper

it was recently concluded that the original authors have the copyright
on papers that were published at the Firebird Conference, so I decided
to make my paper available to the public.

Some small portion of the text is outdated (based on version 0.4.0),
but you can read about history and basic ideas around the project:

http://www.flamerobin.org/flamerobin_paper.pdf
Thanks,

Milan

..::firebird::..::flamerobin::..

TurboCASH development implementing Firebird database

From the blog of the day department

This blogger's comment:

I think this is really good news, since the Delphi source code poses a lot of limitations, Delphi being a commercial compiler/IDE. The way I understand it, you basically have to purchase Delphi if you want to customize and recompile the TurboCASH source. The same with BDE-Paradox. I'd really like to see TurboCASH take-off in this direction.

..::firebird::..::delphi::..::pascal::..::linux::..

Six Reasons Why a Company or Business should consider Blogging

I sent an email to one of my freelance clients regarding the advantages of having a blog site, and I thought it would be nice to share them with you.

..::firebird::..::blogging::..

Let there be Fire - morfik site revamped

Today I was glad to see the new website of Morfik Technology was unveiled. Along with a totally redesigned web site, comes the public release of a test version of the their WebOS AppsBuilder tool. These transformations probably reflect a move by Morfik, to bring the development of the WebOS AppsBuilder into the light, after being kept in the shadows for quite some time.

Ed:if you don't know what is the link between firebird and morfik here is an e-mail interview with the Morfik team

..::firebird::..::ajax::..::csharp::..::delphi::..

MSSql difficult to configure? switch to firebird

However I don't like MSSql server, first of all it is hard to configure, finding solutions to problems is not an easy task, it has lots of dependencies scattered around the hard disk. Hail mysql and firebird.


..::firebird::..::mysql::..::mssql::..

Postgres, SQLite, Firebird are all by boring Americans

It occurs to me that the Unix world is truly international. The new addv-thingy (no title yet, I might reuse SFIC, don't know) is going to be written for Ruby on Rails. The Ruby part is from Japan, and is therefore probably written by catgirls and/or ninjas. Maybe catgirl ninjas. (If such do not exist, they should.) Rails, on the other hand, comes from Denmark and is full of viking goodness. Now if I only could find a database from an as-yet-unrepresented region of the world. MySQL is Swedish, but I think that may be overrepresenting Scandinavia. Postgres, SQLite, Firebird are all by boring Americans, and I ought to be the only boring American on this project. Ah well, geeographic diversity ain't everything.

http://beinsane.livejournal.com/56919.html?view=48727#t48727

..::firebird::..::mysql::..::rubyonrails::..::freebsd::..::postgresql::..::lamp::..

New Debian firebird2 packages fix denial of service

Aviram Jenik and Damyan Ivanov discovered a buffer overflow in firebird2, an RDBMS based on InterBase 6.0 code, that allows remote attackers to crash.

The old stable distribution (woody) does not contain firebird2 packages.

For the stable distribution (sarge) this problem has been fixed in version 1.5.1-4sarge1.

For the unstable distribution (sid) this problem has been fixed in version 1.5.3.4870-3

We recommend that you upgrade your firebird2 packages.

..::firebird::..::debian::..

firebird in shutdown mode

Shutdown mode prevents everyone other than SYSDBA and the owner from
connecting.

This allows you to safely run metadata scripts etc and be sure no-one
else is connected while this happens.

gfix -shut f 300 aliasname

will terminate all connections after 5 minutes.

To allow logins again, you need to use

gfix -online

Here is the rest of the user's blog discovering this firebird "mode"


..::firebird::..

dbdesc 1.4.1 available

The author wrote

"Yesterday I’ve uploaded a small maintenance release of dbdesc.

These are the changes and bug fixes since version 1.4"

..::firebird::..

Why using Firebird? - Blog of the day

This statement is base on my experience, so maybe it's not true for you. Firebird version that I know for the first time is 1.0 version, since then I fall in love with Firebird (FB).

Read more on this blog

..::firebird::..

New Firebird ODBC Driver (V2.0.0129 and V1.3.0093)

Updated snapshots and builds of the Firebird ODBC Driver (V2.0.0129 and V1.3.0093) are available.

..::firebird::..::odbc::..

Sweet-talking Firebird with Delphi

Australian Delphi User Group Symposium - La Trobe University, Melbourne. Helen Borrie will be giving a session on: Sweet-talking Firebird with Delphi
Writing database applications for a Firebird (or InterBase) back-end is all about conversations. Applications request and Firebird responds. The better the request, the more sweetly the database engine will oblige. In this presentation, Helen will address various techniques that Delphi developers use and explain how rewarding a good understanding of Firebird's personality can be. More details at: ADUG Symposium

..::firebird::....::delphi::..

oracle licensing too expensive for oracle community site

from this thread on the orafaq forum:

“There is no way we would be able to raise the money required to buy a commercial Oracle license.”

“I believe the XE edition is a max of 2gig. htmldb would be free for that, but by the time you add htmldb overhead and users, I gotta think this site has way way more data than what is left out of the starting 2gig. … Standard Edition One would be the next option, at 5 grand per proc.”

maybe oracle will toss a free license their way, but this is a great case study on how useless oracle’s free offerings really are. (to contrast, of course, mysql’s free offering is fully-featured, with no artificial limitations. same with other truly free databases like firebird or the open-source versions of postgresql.)

» march 16 (thursday) 11:27pm
..::firebird::..::oracle::..::mysql::..::postgresql::..

Vulcan threading - needs to be fixed

INTRODUCTION

The point of this email is to call attention to what I think is the most critical outstanding element of the Vulcan project - the reliability of the threading and sharing model. This email is, I'm sure, going to devolve in unexpected ways; I'd ask that you read it carefully and think before replying, but please do reply... I believe the "Vulcan" part of the Firebird community very much needs the input of the rest of you all.

Vulcan currently has two conditionally defined threading models. More accurately, two models describing very different levels of sharing of data structures. They have very different qualities, and I believe neither one (in it's current form, at least) is what we ultimately must have.



SHARED_CACHE

If the symbol SHARED_CACHE is defined (the default currently) then Jim's original Vulcan model of fine-grained threading and data sharing is built. This model works generally on the assumption that most things should be shared if possible, and relatively light-weight locking mechanisms are employed to provide serialization/exclusivity when it is recognized that there is a shared data structure that must be made thread-safe.

Key benefits of this model include a more efficient memory footprint since there are very few redundant copies of data structures in memory. This is at the cost of increased synchronization primitive use; a read that does not actually have any conflicts with another thread must act as if a conflict is possible or imminent, and so there is a performance cost to most data access paths to protect the code from potential collision from other threads.



(NO) SHARED_CACHE

If the SHARED_CACHE symbol is not defined, then a much coarser level of sharing is implemented, more akin to the Classic model - each thread has it's own page cache, and so data structures resolved from the page cache are usually thread-private. When cache coherency between copies of the cache must be resolved, the same locking mechanisms are used as in SHARED_CACHE to support code to invalidate pages and force reloads.

Key benefits include a much faster read performance rate since far less data is shared. The cost of this is that write rates have a disproportionately negative impact on performance since updated pages must be invalidated in every connection's copy of the page cache. Worse, the memory foot print increases linearly with the number of connections and the per-connection page cache must therefore be kept relatively small, reducing the effectiveness of the cache.


THE BIG PROBLEM

The point of all this is that the biggest problem with the SHARED_CACHE model is that it does not work reliably under load. We can argue the merits of the test cases for a while, but putting Vulcan under significant load on a real multiprocessor system causes it to fail, and fail relatively quickly. Sometimes the failure is caused by undiscovered critical sections that need additional locking, but sometimes the failure is a deadlock because the relationship of critical sections wasn't completely predicted when the locks were added.

Based on my experience with the embedded usage scenario for Vulcan, I do not believe that SHARED_CACHE works reliably enough to actually use in its current form. Period.



BREAKING IT DOWN

There are quite a few issues that come from this. Here are many of my thoughts, in no specific order. When I say "we" in the following paragraphs, I mean the entire community of Firebird and Vulcan developers, not just my particular company.


1. The (NO)SHARED_CACHE model is not the long-term future, and only works in server environments where very large amounts of memory can be dedicated to the server and/or connection throttling and pooling mechanisms attempt to mitigate the scalability problem. It is a stop-gap that we introduced because we needed Vulcan to work in a timeframe that matches some of our product delivery dates.

2. The SHARED_CACHE model does not work, and is very very hard to debug. Clearly debugging by careful inspection can go a long way, but presumes that the inspector(s) know what they are looking for and/or understand the intended sharing model clearly. It also requires a lot of time and effort. SAS has thus far been unable to make this work ourselves, in part because the underlying lock manager appears to deadlock for reasons we have not been able to solve.

3. Testing multi-threaded code is difficult, and nearly impossible to do without the right hardware. I'll be the first to acknowledge that this is a significant problem in an open source community where many of the participants are either self-funded or trying to balance business objectives against community involvement and may not have the luxury of dedicating significant hardware to this. We need to find a practical way to resolve the test environment issues so that the core development team (at least) can regularly validate changes.

4. We need an agreed-upon test suite to validate the threading and sharing model. SAS uses a set of tests ("threadtest") that can be variably configured to control the number of simultaneous client connections and the work load. I think we've shared this already, but if not we'll be glad to make it available as a candidate test tool. More importantly, the community needs to agree on a test scenario that is considered a minimum requirement for this scenario that must pass before Vulcan can be considered ready for real users.

5. We cannot accept a system that works "for a while" or "for a few users" and then dies in a horrible way, hard to reproduce and putting data at risk. Its fine for a server to have limits, but those limits should be something that can be determined in advance or predicted at runtime so a thoughtful and reasonable response can be given to clients and tools. Declaring a test scenario unreasonable because it is hard to debug is not acceptable. Declaring a test case unreasonable and yet still guaranteeing that the server has a reasonable response is great.

6. There are volumes written about the difficulty of retro-fitting threading on code never written to support it. This is a very hard thing to do at all, and very very very hard to do well. My point is not to be a naysayer about Vulcan, but to make clear that we must understand that threading the Firebird code base is not simple to implement, test, or debug.

7. This is important because planning for the Vulcan/FB integration needs to take into account a realistic view of the state of Vulcan. If we think that Vulcan is nearly done as a 1.0 release (the timeline published during the conference called for a public release around now, if I recall) then a merger really becomes about the divergence in the code bases and reconciling them. If Vulcan really can't perform as it must to be used as the fundamental engine architecture of FB3, then the FB3 merger is about far more than resolving class name changes and updating the optimizer - it is about the guts of Vulcan and whether the sharing model really understands what is shared, when, and why.

8. Related to this has to be some kind of protocol for testing before a push. Threading issues are so hard to debug that they become exponentially harder to track down and repair the further they become buried in the CVS history records. If code is changed that could reasonable be expected to influence the thread-safety of the project, it must be tested against the approved benchmarks regularly and ideally before commit for large changes. It is bad enough when single threaded code is pushed without adequate validation, but it can be the death of a code base when those changes affect concurrency. You can take this any way you like, but too much of Vulcan has already been written without adequate testing. We are compounding the difficulty of retrofitting threading on a monolith by attempting to retrofit quality on the threading. Lots of this is due to the issues above involving availability of test environments and agreement on the requirements, but it's a problem
that will get worse - not better - as more folks get involved in modifying Vulcan.


WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO NEXT?

I don't want to start a flame war, and I sure don't want to retard forward progress on Vulcan. But I work with more than a few smart people, and our team couldn't make SHARED_CACHE work reliably after trying for quite a while, using the best tools and systems we had available. It is my sincere hope that this was largely because we at SAS are still learning the Firebird/Vulcan architecture, and if we had the kind of deep knowledge that many of you have, it would be a workable problem.

My point is that I think this is a big deal, and needs to be tackled before there is too much planning on a FB3 merger that will take away energy from the "does it really work" question. And that question needs independent validation, from parties other than either Jim or me.

The community needs a plan to tackle this, and some resources to do it.

1. A test scenario needs to be developed. There needs to be an assessment about a reasonable test server configuration, in terms of number of processors, CPU power, memory footprint, etc. And we need to understand the test case to be thrown at that server: number of clients, think time versus work time, read/write ratios, degree of sharing of indexes, tables, and databases, etc.

2. There needs to be a definition of a "successful" test case. This should include what must happen during the test run, and what must not happen during the test run.

3. There needs to be a thorough review of the test software itself. We don't want the test driver to contain implicit assumptions or limits that skew the test towards any particular outcome. The test should not be what just one company wants or needs, but should represent the community interest.

4. There needs to be a test configuration provided for an independent assessment, with an agreed upon build of the system and a validation that it meets the requirements set out in item #1 above.

5. The tests need to be published and the community needs to openly discuss what they mean and what influence they will have on FB3 planning and execution.



CONCLUSION

At the end of the day, SAS is just one of the members of this community - and a fledgling one at that. But we have some resources that we can use to help solve these problems, even though we do not have the full knowledge of Firebird internals.

More importantly, we think that the promise of Vulcan is valuable and good, but the current implementation is not getting the attention it needs to fulfill that promise. We can help, but only so far as our knowledge takes us. I believe that the community needs to pick up the issue of Vulcan's scalability and threading and make it the first priority of post-FB2 work. And we need to start with a dispassionate evaluation of what we have in Vulcan today.

I wrestled with whether this was a Firebird developer or architecture issue, but I have settled on the developer list - we have real problems with the real code already implemented, and need a plan of attack on how to fix it that is larger than assigning it to a core developer.

I look to the community for input on what to do next.


--
Tom Cole, Platform R&D, SAS Institute Inc.

sorry for slashdot-ing

My recent article, MySQL's response to Oracle's moves, was Slashdotted. We all know what that means.

Luckily I host in the US, with layeredtech. The site seemed to survive the onslaught, except for a few complaints that may have been about the stylesheets not loading.

http://www.greenman.co.za/b2evolution/blogs/index.php?p=267

..::firebird::..

Smart moves by MySQL AB

Now there seems to be a clear response. MySQL has hired former Firebird developer Jim Starkey and MySQL has a new CTO: Taneli Otala - read Kaj Arnö's interview with Taneli.

The final statement on this interview declares a clear goal: "Definitely. I want to be part of the team building the world's best database!". The times when MySQL targeted itself mainly to drive small and medium web based applications are definitely over!

The fact that MySQL is hireing new developers is just another indication that underlines that MySQL is moving forward towards the "big competitors".

read more on db4free blog

..::firebird::...:mysql::..::oracle::..

php5 and firebird 1.5 on debian or ubuntu

Darren wrote (in firebird-php list)

Decided to install php5 and firebird 1.5 on Debain
very easy

do the following edit

# vi /etc/apt/sources.list

add these two lines to the file

deb http://people.debian.org/~dexter php5 sarge
deb-src http://people.debian.org/~dexter php5 sarge

save and exit :wq

then do a
# apt-get update

then install all the modules you need
use this command to check whats available
#apt-cache search php5

then install what you want
#apt-get install php5 php5.0-firebird

it installs a few things like apache etc if you havent already got it
installed.

then restart apache
/etc/init.d/apache2 start

you might want to remove php4 beforehand if you have it installed

it seems to work fine big thank you to the guy who maintains this
package! if you are on here. Debian ROCKS.

..::firebird::..::php::..::debian::..::ubuntu::..::php5::..

Firebird logo - remineds me of mortalkombat.

Quote of the day " Also I love the logo, remineds me of mortalkombat."
..::firebird::..

firebird in 60 seconds

60 seconds to know what is firebird
www.firebirdnews.org/docs/fb2min.html
..::firebird::..

TurboCASH on Lazarus/Firebird "proof of concept"

Developers from turboCASH are asking for Lazarus programers (people that program using Lazarus IDE) to set up a small test application to prove that Lazarus can be IDE of choice to port turboCASH to Linux.

there is information on how to adapt existing turboCASH code to run on Lazarus here:

http://www.box.co.za/wiki/index.php/Roadmap_Linux#Lazarus

Also read the original mail from turboCASH developer Philip Coperman:

-----------------------------------

Can anyone help with the following on Linux:

1) Setup a simple "proof of concept" in Lazarus

-------------------------------------------------------------
1) Lazarus and Linux

There are some useful contributions on Getting Lazarus and TurboCASH for Linux going here:

http://www.box.co.za/wiki/index.php/Roadmap_Linux#Lazarus

We have decided to use Firebird (80%) and possibly support MySQL (20%). In the Windows Project we are converting the current Delphi Code to work with Firebird and will add MySQL support if required afterwards. (In my project experience, that becomes unlikely)

I am now more concerned about:

1) How we are going to connect to the Firebird Database (and/or MySQL) - In Delphi we are using ZEOS Lib

2) What are we going to use for a Grid. In Delphi/Windows we use a quality commercial package - Infopower. I have struggled to find and Open Source alternative. Project Jedi seems to offer the best. The Grid is what gives TurboCASH batches and invoices that really friendly Spreadsheet look. How will we do this in Lazarus/Linux?

3) How are we going to write reports - In Delphi Linux we use Free Reports and Reportman. We have a legacy history with Quick Reports.

If you Linux guys (Even the Lazarus on Windows guys) - Could do the following :

i) Download the TurboCASH/Delphi project. Steal whatever you need
ii) "Open " a set of books simply by connecting to the TurboCASH Fro bird Database
iii) Set up any grid you like to edit any record you like in TurboCASH
iv) Write a simple report (take any one of ch windows one)

If we can do the above we can consider Lazarus as a serious proposition.
..::firebird::..::mysql::..::delphi::..::pascal::..

Wolf , Dolphin and Firebird - Story

Quote of the day

Until then, as Mickos has reportedly said, MySQL is sticking by the premise that trying to kill open-source products by buying companies that make open-source products is like trying to kill a dolphin by drinking the ocean.

..::firebird::..

MySQL Makes an Acquisition - Blog of the day

A bit more on a previous post about the acquisition offer Oracle made MySQL recently. The more I think about it, the more I think SAP is the intended target here. Why? Just look at the money involved.
Read Jeremy's Blog
MySQL::..:: Netfrastructure::..:: Firebird::..:: Oracle::..:: SAP::..:: Open Source

What will be fixed in Firebird v2.0 Release Candidate 1 - Tales from the Changelog

    * Fixed unregistered bug
        A few types of subqueries are wrongly treated as being variant,
        causing performance issues
      Contributor(s):
        Dmitry Yemanov 

    * Fixed Beta 2 bug (SF #$1433583)
        Unexpected error "key size exceeds implementation restriction" for UTF-8 charset
      Contributor(s):
        Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

    * Fixed unregistered bug
        Indices used in explicit plans inside PSQL could be dropped, thus causing restore issues
      Contributor(s):
        Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 

    * Fixed unregistered bug
        fb_lock_print fails with message:
        "the requested operation cannot be performed on a file with a user-mapped section open".
      Contributor(s):
        Vlad Horsun 

    * Information API enhancements
        1) isc_info_active_transactions_count returns number of active transactions (SF #1315814)
        2) isc_transaction_info returns transaction isolation level and options (SF #1089646)
        3) isc_info_creation_date returns creation date of the database
      See also:
        /doc/sql.extensions/README.isc_info_xxx
      Contributor(s):
        Vlad Horsun 

    * Fixed unregistered bug
        Transaction ID cannot silently (and dangerously) overflow anymore (the limit is still 231)
      Contributor(s):
        Vlad Horsun 

    * Fixed unregistered bug
        Read committed transactions block garbage collection
      Contributor(s):
        Vlad Horsun 

    * Fixed unregistered bug
        ALL predicate may return wrong results
      Contributor(s):
        Dmitry Yemanov 

    * Fixed unregistered bug
        Thread safety issues in datetime functions of the FBUDF library
      Contributor(s):
        Claudio Valderrama 

    * Build improvement
        FBUDF library no longer depends on FBCLIENT
      Contributor(s):
        Claudio Valderrama 

    * Fixed unregistered bug
        Permissions are not checked for view columns
      Contributor(s):
        Dmitry Yemanov 

    * Fixed unregistered bug
        Server crashes if positioned UPDATE/DELETE is executed via DSQL
        and it references a cursor which is already released.
      Contributor(s):
        Vlad Horsun 

    * Fixed SF bug #1404157
        DFW is not ready for RECREATE TABLE/VIEW
      Contributor(s):
        Dmitry Yemanov 

    * Fixed unregistered bug
        Restored the code which replaces ROLLBACK with COMMIT if a transaction
        has not modified any data
      Contributor(s):
        Dmitry Yemanov 

    * Fixed unregistered bug
        ROW_COUNT is cleared after SUSPEND execution
      Contributor(s):
        Dmitry Yemanov 

    * Fixed SF bug #1408079
        Parser does not validate string literal markers
      Contributor(s):
        Claudio Valderrama 

    * Fixed Beta 2 bug
        Incorrect ambiguity error raised for quantified predicates (ANY/ALL/IN)
      Contributor(s):
        Arno Brinkman 

    * Fixed unregistered bugs
        1) Wrong statistics if relation\index data is longer than 232 bytes length
        2) Wrong statistics: average index key length rounded to integer value
      Contributor(s):
        Vlad Horsun 

    * Fixed unregistered bug
        Attachments with isc_dpb_no_garbage_collect option force the sweep
      Contributor(s):
        Vlad Horsun 

    * Fixed Beta 2 bug
        Wrong string length calculated for UNICODE_FSS system domains
        in users views and tables
      Contributor(s):
        Adriano dos Santos Fernandes 
        Dmitry Yemanov 

    * Fixed Beta 2 bug
        Incorrectly stored source for CURRENT_TIME\CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
        in procedure parameters default values
      Contributor(s):
        Vlad Horsun 

..::firebird::..

World Domination with Firebird - Mastering Firebird Book

“The Firebird Book” is now avalable in Portuguese, "Dominando Firebird: Uma Referência Para Desenvolvedores de Bancos de Dados".

Brazilian’s version of Helen Borrie’s book was released today by LCM publisher, the same publisher of “Firebird Essencial“. In some weeks, LCM will release the “IB Expert” book in portuguese and a new book about Firebird Security Tips (by Luiz Paulo de O. Santos). Helen’s book title was changed to “Dominando Firebird”, something like “Mastering Firebird”.

Permalink

..::firebird::..

OSDB market soap opera update (mysql and firebird)

A quick pointer to the news announcement that mysql has purchased a company called netfrastructure inc, which happens to employ Jim Starkey (one of the founders of InterBase, an ancestor to Firebird) and perhaps more importantly Ann Harrison, one of th…
..::firebird::..::mysql::..::postgresql::..

What has happened to the Open Source Database Consortium?

A while ago, people from the major Open Source
database systems have met to form the Open Source Database Consortium - that was in October 2005.

OK,
that's not that long ago, but I hope that the ambitions to co-operate
aren't over again. It was told that a website will be created at www.osdbconsortium.org.
There's nothing to see except a "Just a web page" note. I haven't heard
any news about this since October - I believe, it would be nice if
MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird etc. could do some things together. That
would certainly be more welcoming than any deal with a proprietary
database vendor.

Read more on :Markus Popp's blog
..::firebird::..::mysql::..::postgresql::..

Oracle - they are just anti RDBMS competition - quote of the day

But on the whole Oracle isn't anti-open-source (look at what they are doing with linux), they are just anti RDBMS competition, and especially anti commercial RDBMS competition (and especially anti anti against RDBMS and SAP competition).

From Robert Treat blog via planetpostgresql.org

..::firebird::..::mysql::..::oracle::..

MySQL's response to Oracle's moves

MySQL have responded in the best way they can by Acquiring Netfrastructure, Inc, and as part of the agreement Jim Starkey will be working fulltime for MySQL AB. Jim Starkey is the father of Interbase (which forked into Firebird) as well as the inventor of the term blob.

Digg it
..::firebird::..::mysql::..::oracle::..

the wolf is gone to mysql - Jim Starkey joined MySQL AB

Jim Starkey, the original creator
of InterBase which became Firebird, just made it publicly known that he
now works for MySQL AB.

My company, Netfrastructure, Inc., has been acquired by MySQL, AB. As

part of the agreement, I will be working full time for MySQL. I expect

to lurk on the architecture list from time to time and may contribute

the occasional wolf-o-gram, but I will not be taking an active part in

Firebird development. Although Ann will work for MySQL, part time,

translating from wolf to English, she will continue to be active in the


Firebird project.

My decision to join MySQL has almost nothing to do with Firebird and

everything to do with Netfrastructure. The Netfrastructure platform

represents what I feel about contemporary computing hardware and future

application requirements, and has been the center of my technical heart

and soul for six year. Some aspects of Netfrastructure technology have

already been contributed to the Vulcan project, but Firebird and

Netfrastructure are architecturally incompatible. An attempt to

integrate the technologies would be unlikely to meet the goals of either


project.

MySQL and Firebird have never seen each other as competitors and I doubt

this will change in the future. The projects have different open source

philosophies, different technologies, different customer bases, and

different sweet spots. The ideas behind the two projects are, happily,

public and available to all. If MySQL and Firebird compete, it is only

competition in offering the best possible support to their respective

customers.

I am pleased to have had the opportunity to finish the Vulcan project.


The combination of Vulcan SMP and architecture combined the rich feature

set of Firebird 2 will make a solid release and a superb platform for

future development.

I wish the Firebird project all the best in years to come. And if you

need an opinion, please feel free to call.

Permalink
| Leave your comment
..::firebird::..::mysql::..

Backup your del.icio.us bookmarks in Firebird

"I'm a fan of del.icio.us because it allows me to seamlessly access my bookmars from whichever computer I am currently logged in to. A comment in a posting on this blog some time ago, brought my attention to Scuttle, an Open Source version of del.icio.us written in PHP. Scuttle is currently available in version 0.6.0.

The underlying database into which scuttle stores users and bookmarks, can be any of MySQL, Oracle, Postgres, SqLite, DB2, Firebird, and a couple others"

Read more on Jan-Piet's blog
http://blog.fupps.com/2006/02/16/delicious-scuttle/

..::firebird::..

Why Pay for a Database? - Why pay for sex when you can get it free?

As open-source databases have grown in popularity among large enterprises and small and midsize businesses alike, many CIOs have taken a closer look at the savings associated with switching to these noncommercial alternatives.

Despite the attractive prices that are drawing more CIOs to open-source applications such as MySQL and PostgreSQL, traditional software Relevant Products/Services from Insight vendors have not exactly thrown in the towel. Some — including Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM — are fighting back by releasing free, scaled-down versions of their fully featured database products in the hopes that customers might one day upgrade.

But the question remains: Does it make good business sense to pay for a commercial database product when well-established, open-source versions pose enticing alternatives? A growing migration away from commercial software suggests that, for many customers, it does not.

http://business.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=41585

..::firebird::..::mysql::..::postgresql::..::mssql::..::oracle::..::db2::..

Open source database ‘years away from being a serious contender’

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you,
then you win.
by Mahatma Gandhi.

http://xrl.us/j2jd (Link to www.computerweekly.com)

Permalink | Leave your comment

..::firebird::..::mysql::..::postgresql::..
::mssql::..::oracle::..::db2::..

Firebird and SQL 2003 standard Conformance

This document outlines how much Firebird conforms to the current SQL standard.[2003] Please note that the following information is not a full statement of conformance, but just information for those interested in the subject.

What is your main language used with FB?

Seems that 80% of firebird users are  Delphi users
if i look at this pool votes (the one on the right sidebar)
http://www.firebirdnews.org/
In a way is no shock to me  - i started working as an interbase / Delphi
programmer
I think Lazarus+firebird package needs more attention (better
documentation+ more articles etc)

..::firebird::..::delphi::..::php::..::c#::..::java::..::c++::..::vb::..::ruby::..::asp.net::..::python::..

Porting the EMPLOYEE database from Firebird 2.0 to MySQL 5.1 part 7&8

Pabloj (moderator at devshed.com forums) wrote the last steps from
it's porting/comparative guide
Part 7 - Part8
..::firebird::..::mysql::..::database::..

Firebird and FireBase in “Anuario InfoCorporate 2006″

Firebird and FireBase (Brazilian Firebird dedicated portal) is mentioned in the Database section of the 2006 edition of “Anuário InfoCorporate“. Some months ago, a journalist from InfoCorporate called me by phone and made a small interview about Open Source databases and Firebird to be used in the publication.

The publication is a major source of indexed information to make the work of finding the best services/consulting providers of a specific area easier.

An excerpt of the article be be viewed below (portuguese only):

See remaining text… »

..::firebird::..::open source::..

SQL Manager 2005 for InterBase/Firebird released!

Written by EMS Software Development

Friday, 10 February 2006

EMS Software Development Company has released SQL Manager 2005 for InterBase/Firebird - the new major version of the powerful InterBase and Firebird administration and development tool! SQL Manager 2005 is compatible with any Firebird version up to 2.0 and InterBase version up to 7.5 and supports all of the latest features. It offers plenty of powerful tools for experienced users such as Visual Database Designer, Visual Query Builder and Stored Procedure Debugger to satisfy all their needs. EMS Software Development Company has released SQL Manager 2005 for InterBase/Firebird - the new major version of the powerful InterBase and Firebird administration and development tool!

You can learn more about SQL Manager 2005 for InterBase/Firebird at: http://www.sqlmanager.net/products/ibfb/manager




You can download SQL Manager 2005 for InterBase/Firebird at: http://www.sqlmanager.net/products/ibfb/manager/download

..::firebird::..

Firebird 2 beta 2 released

The Firebird Project has released the second Firebird 2.0 beta. Over the weekend, kits for Win32, Linux x86 (including NPTL builds for Superserver) and Linux x64 are being released for testing. Mirrors are slowly filling up; slower downloads from the pre-release area are also available temporarily but please try the main (mirror) links first.

You can download it here.

Thanks for Jiri Cincura for leting us know about this.

Permalink | Leave your comment

..::firebird::..::database::..::sql::..

firebird 1.5.3 gentoo package updated

Changed inetd USE flag to xinetd, bug #121886. Added doc USE flag handling useful docs from firebird website
http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?firebird-1.5.3-r1
..::firebird::..::gentoo::..::linux::..

Firebird Powered Web Forum dnfBB

dnfBB is a n-Tier, fast and lightweight .Net-powered discussion board written in C#. With native support for multiple forums within the same database structure. Initially designed to work with Firebird and MySQL, support for other databases is planned.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dnfbb

..::firebird::..::mono::..::.Net::..::csharp::..::mysql::..::oracle::..::mssql::..::postgresql::..

Killing Microsoft Exchange with Firebird+Mailtraq

ServerWatch: Mailtraq Keeps Budgets, Features on Track "A budget friendly alternative to Microsoft Exchange" - uses Firebird.
..::firebird..::..microsoft..::..exchange::..

Status of the Firebird Tutorial for .NET

At the beginning of January I posted a Request for Ideas: Firebird in .NET Tutorial. First of all, thanks to all who contributed their ideas.

I'm currently working hard on the tutorial. The original idea was to write just a quick introduction but it seems there is a lot to tell... The weakest point of Firebird seems to be the lack of freely available documentation - so I decided to invest a little bit more time in the tutorial.

..::firebird::..::mono::..::dotnet::..::.net::..

Sequoia 2.6: A Transparent Middleware Solution with firebird support

Sequoia is a transparent middleware solution for clustering, load balancing and failover services for any database. The database is distributed and replicated among several nodes and Sequonia balances the queries among nodes. It is also known to handle node failures and support for checkpointing and hot recovery. It was formerly known as the clustered JDBC project and provides high availability and performance scalability for databases.

More about it on jax magazine

..::firebird::..::jdbc::..::java::..::clusters::..::mysql::..::postgresql::..
::mssql::..::oracle::..::db2::..

Lazarus 0.9.12 released

The Lazarus team is glad to announce the 0.9.12 release. This release is based on fpc 2.0.2 and the binary packages now contain many standard packages:

This release can be downloaded from the sourceforge download page:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=89339

Detailed list of changes

Lazarus supports Firebird with SQLdb package that comes with the IDE
or third party components.

..::firebird::..::lazarus::..::delphi::..

Playing with the Firebird Database - Blog of the day

In my last blog entry reguarding the rumored SunDB I immediately discounted the Firebird Database as a contender. In the comments posted to that entry it was suggested that Firebird shouldn't be so quickly discarded and may even be a "diamond in the rough". Well, if I'm wrong I'm willing to explore it and admit that I'm wrong if thats the case, afterall, what if Firebird really that great? I certainly don't want to miss out on a good thing. So thanks to Gentoo I quickly emerged Firebird 1.5.2 and started playing.

..::firebird::..

Quote of the day - I tried to make Interbase as simple and fast as possible : no tuning , no configuration control , no overrides

It's from 2000 and from Firebird Architect list

"What I'm trying to do is establish a cultural mindset for Interbase
development, soon to be a world wide effort, that easy to use means
intelligence in the system, not thousands of individual features.

Open Source has produced some very high quality software but often

at a cost of great obscurity.  Samba, for examples, emulates what
on Windows takes three mouse clicks, but requires 140 pages of
documentation to read and understand before installation.  Of
the "info" documentation reader with so many easy to remember
commands that they ran out upper case letters, lower case letters,
control-letters that they had to resort to keyboard chords.

I tried to make Interbase as simple and fast as possible -- no
tuning (other than indexes), no configuration control (undone
by Sys-V shared memory!), no overrides.  Where tuning was
traditionally required, I found alternative algorithms that
we insensitive to tuning.  Although memory sizes now make
the feature unnecessary, the optimizer computers the number of
page buffers required to efficiently perform a query and
warns the cache manager to find more memory.

I want Interbase developed by people who believe that smart,
small, and simple is good.  I want it used by people with
a problem to solve but who don't want to be database experts.


Jim Starkey"

..::firebird::..

Speed Comparison - Sqlite Posgtresql Mysql and Firebird

Benchmarks with Firebird 1.5.2 and the rest of the pack , Draw your own conclusions

http://www.sqlite.org/cvstrac/wiki?p=SpeedComparison

Spoted on Tim Anderson's Tech writing blog

..::firebird::..mysql::..sqllite::..postgresql::..

New Evans Data Survey

“Evans Data: Today we have posted the 2006 Linux/Open Source Software survey. The survey is open to ALL panelists familiar with Linux or open source software.”

Firebird is mentioned in two questions:

Which Open Source databases do you use most often?

What database are you using on the platform for which MOST of your applications are targeted?

Don’t forget to vote for Firebird!

Permalink | Leave your comment

..::firebird::..

ANN: CopyCat Replication Suite version 1.03.0

Microtec is pleased to announce a new version of CopyCat, our Delphi /
C++Builder component set for database replication.

CopyCat can be used for integrating replication functionality into your
applications, or for making your own customized replicators, enabling
off-site database work, asynchronous work over slow connections,
automatic live backup, etc.

For information about CopyCat, see here

Changes in version 1.03.0:

See remaining text… »

• Added support for BDS 2006.
  
• Added a new OnResolveConflict event, providing easy access to all the
  information concerning the conflict, and allowing the user to resolve
  the conflict in a simple way.
  
• Removed TCcTables and TCcProcedures components. Instead, TCcConfig
  now creates two new tables in the database, RPL$TABLES and
  RPL$PROCEDURES, thus replacing and simplifying the previous INI-file
  system, which was too error-prone.
  
• The example projects have been considerably improved and extended.
  
• Added a Getting started manual, explaining the first steps to using
  CopyCat, as well as detailing each of the provided examples.
  
• Fixed some internal errors, that sometimes caused access violations
  and IDE instability at design-time.
  

« Hide it

Permalink | Leave your comment

..::firebird::..

Firebird 1.5.3 and Trustix linux

Here are the experiences on Trustix 3 , and maybe someone will contribute the firebrd rpm to trustix too. (with dependencies solved)
..::firebird::..trustix::..linux::..

Firebird 1.5.3 debian packages are available for testing

I've done preparing Firebird 1.5.3 packages.

deb[-src] ftp://shrek.creditreform.bg/public sid main

All feedback is warmly welcome. If no problems are found, I'll proceed with
upload to the archive.

Ah, also there you can find packages for flamerobin.

Damyan Ivanov
All you need to do is to add the above repository to your /etc/apt/sources.list
and then apt-get update ; apt-cache search firebird
then install what you need (classic or super server)

..::firebird::..::debian::..::ubuntu::..

OSS databases making inroads - Blog of the day

Here is a good link in businessweek on how OSS databases are horning in on

the database market.

I personally think that the majority of database users can do there work

with either Postgrsql, MySql or others like the Borland interbase now know

as Firebird or even Computer Associates Ingres which was recently made

opensource. Really do most company really need all those extra features or

are they just selling feature like Picture in picture was on your new TV

which you never use now.

Here is the link for you to check out:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060206_918648.htm
Best regards,
-Richard Houston
..::firebird::..::mysql::..::mssql::..::postgresql::..::oracle::..

Open Source vs. the Database Vendors - on slashdot

"BusinessWeek has another spread on open source this week. Among them is an article about open source vs. the database vendors
which focused on how businesses are looking to save money with open
source (rather than using the source to innovate). From the article:
"The databases work fine, but as data volume grows, so do the checks to
Oracle, IBM, or Microsoft. Many users aren't clamoring for more
features, and some don't even use the bells and whistles they already
paid for. They would happily trade some to get their hands on the
source code and a better deal."
Original source for news slashdot.org

..::firebird::..::mysql::..::mssql::..::postgresql::..::oracle::..

FirebirdClient 2.0 Beta 4 released.

FirebirdClient 2.0 Beta 4 for Visual Studio 2005 & Microsoft.NET 2.0,
the ADO.NET Data Provider for Firebird, is available for download.

Download information can be found here:

http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=files&id=netprovider


· Beta 4 ( 2006-02-03 ) ·

(Please read the Changelog for details)


Bug Fixes:

    - Fixed Foreign Keys schemas.

    - Fixed problem with the COLUMN_SIZE column in the FbViewColumns schema.

    - Bug fix in FbPoolManager when trying to return back to the pool a
connection.

    - Fixed DataTypes schema in the FbMetaData.xml file.

New Features:

    - [DDEX] Foreign keys should be now automaticalled added to DataSets
at design time when
    dropping tables from the Server Explorer.

    - Added correct support for the new .net 2.0
    DbParameter.SourceColumnNullMapping property (Alexander V. Leshkin)

    - Initial implementation of the new extended support for
char/varchar fields
    with OCTETS character set.

Changes:

    - Added RemoteEventId property to FbRemoteEvent class.




--
Best regards

Carlos Guzmán Álvarez
Vigo-Spain

..::firebird::..::mono::..::dotnet::..::.net::..

Interesting Project Metrics

I've been wonder for some about about metrics to evaluate the relative
architectural cleanliness of various database implementations.  To that
end, I wrote a simple program that eat Visual Studio 7 projects files
and analyzes the source files.  Here are the results:

	Nfs Engine	Vulcan	Firebird 2	MySQL Server
Total Modules	429	633	232	123
Total Lines	63432	227814	126274	214356
Code Modules	206	218	70	99
Header Modules	221	394	162	15
Preprocessed Modules	0	16	0	0
Other Modules	2	5	0	9
Number Functions	2839	4706	1633	4960
Average Arguments	5.00	8.65	13.08	7.58
Average FunctionLines	14.86	32.46	55.95	31.70
Average Code Lines	11.80	21.20	37.12	26.90
Average Internal Comments	0.94	6.10	11.92	2.59
Average Internal WhiteSpace	2.12	5.16	6.92	2.21

The analysis program doesn't try to follow conditional compilation, so
everything is included whether active or not.

The Netfrastructure engine is roughly equivalent in functionality to
Firebird.  The Netfrastructure numbers, however, are for the database
engine only, excluding the Java Virtual Machine and template engine. 
Since the trigger and procedure language in Netfrastructure are Java,
this isn't a strict apples to apples comparison.   On the other hand,
the Netfrastructure engine includes the remote server, which Vulcan
does not.
The Vulcan numbers are taken from the engine provider current code
base.  A small number of modules that, due to conditional compilation,
couldn't make it through the analysis program were omitted. 
Post-processed modules were also omitted.  Since Vulcan contains quite
of bit of archival, disabled Firebird code, its numbers are slightly
bloated.
The Firebird number are taken from "engine" msvc7 project.  Since
Firebird 2 doesn't use custom development steps, the preprocessed
modules aren't included (the project hasn't been built, so the
corresponding post-processed modules are not included either.  I don't
actually know what is the Firebird 2 engine build, but I assume it
doesn't include DSQL and possible other common stuff.

The MySQL numbers are from their Windows source kit.  I believe that
they also use static libraries for cross component modules, so I
suspect this is less than the full server.  But it does give a feeling.

I think the two most interesting sets of number are the average number
of arguments per function and the average number of code lines per
function (code lines exclude comments and white space).  It is most
interesting that in each case, Vulcan falls halfway between
Netfrastructure and Firebird 2.  The average number of arguments is a
good metric of the quality of a design.  Bad (or in this case eroded)
designs have to pass everything but the kitchen sink, and sometimes
that.  The Firebird 2 numbers are particularly scary because many
additional parameters are passed covertly through thread data.  The
average code lines per function is a good metric of modularity -- the
degree to which common code is cleanly factored out.

The comment related metrics are substantially misleading since they are
computed relative to number of functions rather than code lines --
fewer code lines will always mean fewer comments.  Even so, it is clear
that Firebird has something to teach me and MySQL about internal
commenting.

Both the ProjectAnalyst and ProjectsSummary projects are checked into
the Vulcan tree under src.  If you want to play or analyze Firebird 1.0
or 1.5, I'd like to see the results.  You may also want to add more
metrics.  ProjectAnalyst generates xml (sans header) summary files,
ProjectsSummary turns a set of xml summary into an HTML table.

-- 

Jim Starkey
Netfrastructure, Inc.
978 526-1376

Porting the EMPLOYEE database from Firebird 2.0 to MySQL 5.1 in steps:1-2-3-4

Hi, I've decided to make an in depth test of MySQL's new functionalities by porting Firebird's EMPLOYEE.FDB database to MySQL 5.1.5, here is what I found, I hope it will be useful for people porting apps from MySQL to Firebird and vice-versa.
http://pabloj.blogspot.com/2006/01/porting-employee-database-from.html
..::firebird::..::mysql::..

IBM Introduces a Free (as in Beer) Version of DB2

This week IBM became the latest proprietary database vendor to add a free offering to their lineup, according to ZDNet:
Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6032676.html

It would be difficult to estimate the balance between appealing to developers and the influence of Open Source databases such as MySQL, but I would tend to believe that competetion from Postgres, Firebird, MySQL, et al. to be a significant factor in the decision to release free versions of proprietary databases.

Source for this news/blog of the day
http://www.openwin.org/mike/index.php/archives/2006/01/ibm-introduces-a-free-as-in-beer-version-of-db2/
..::firebird::..::mysql::..::postgresql::..::oracle::..::mssql::..::db2::..

SR UDF Library version (2.0.1.0)

A user defined function library (160 UDFs) for InterBase and Firebird on the Windows platform. This version of SR UDF Library supports the following standard routins: Math, File, DateTime, String, Regional in addition to Conversion routins for converting different measurement units.

http://www.srmaster.com
..::firebird::..

IBExpert v2006.01.29 now available

HK Software have announced the immediate availability of a new Version of IBExpert (2006.01.29).

Visit www.ibexpert.com to download this version
..::firebird::..

Advanced Data Generator v1.6

Upscene productions have announced the availability of a new version of their Advanced Data Generator V1.6.0

..::firebird::..